The Incandescent Council of Python has a problem. Asphodel, a popular tapas restaurant in the Pipes District, has been serving halfling-liver pâté as one of its brunch specials. At first it wasn’t a problem; the sort of people to complain about that type of thing weren’t the sort of people eating there. Patrons mostly included the city’s eccentric upper crust: wizards, fish cream parlor franchise-owners, pleasure pirates, fashion moguls, even the occasional Council member. Almost none of whom are halflings. Halflings aren’t tall enough to be upper crust. They’re middle crust on a good day.
Eventually a high society halfling did find out about the restaurant, and threatened to stop pretending to pay taxes! If the unwashed masses caught wind of that one… Now the Council needs you deal with the restaurant. Simply taking the pâté off the menu isn’t going to cut it either. They’ll find some other controversial food to serve. You need to shut the entire place down. Put them out of business.
Ruin them.
The only problem is the Pleasant Python Preservation Committee. An eons-long thorn in the side of the Incandescent Council, the Preservation Committee is headed by the ancient and maleficent lich, Karen, and she happens to love that restaurant. She claims it has immense cultural significance for the city, but everybody knows she’s just in it for the bottomless mimosas.
| [d8] What's On The Menu At Asphodel? | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Deep-fried dunepuppies, drizzled with a fireberry beurre blanc |
| 2 | Halfling-liver pâté, on delicately-salted cornbread crackers |
| 3 | Bloodiest Mary, garnished with pickled goblin fingers |
| 4 | Braised gloom eel bites, on baked pumpkin spears |
| 5 | Black pudding hummus, served with gluten-free pita |
| 6 | Deviled cockatrice eggs with a side salad |
| 7 | Buffalo pegasus wings, boneless of course |
| 8 | Blackened ghost knuckles with a whiskey-cream dipping sauce |
Liches crave the preservation of things. They will not suffer change. Its in their nature. They don’t understand the beauty of impermanence. Things like falling autumn leaves register as nothing but mere annoyance to people like Karen, whose miniature hellhound gets lost in big piles of them when they go on walks in the park.
So, after many years of being on the committee, Karen was voted in as their public face. Her rictus is a familiar sight to many, having been plastered on billboards for years in service of the committee's various projects. Dozens of landowners and officials throughout the city despise her for her meddling. Hardly anything can get done through the standard channels. All bureaucracy grinds to a stop at the mere mention of her name.
This is why the Incandescent Council needs people like you. You can get things done under the radar, and Karen can’t prove the Council was involved.
Get to it.